OCD and getting help when help is needed

Yes, the nurse had noticed my hands. And she had told the doctor about them.

That scared me. I didn’t want the doctor to mention my hands. I didn’t want to tell him about my hand washing.

Janet at ocdtalk wrote a wonderful post this week about “OCD and Early Treatment Experiences.” In her post, Janet writes about the troubles many people with OCD have when seeking help for the first time.

Her post resonated with me and brought back some memories of my own early attempts to get help for my OCD.

I suffered from obsessions and compulsions for years before I ever got treatment. My first symptoms appeared when I was a girl. When I was a teenager, I read a magazine article about OCD and recognized myself in it. But I remained silent. I told no one about my strange thoughts and compulsive habits.

Of course, my parents noticed some of my compulsive habits, especially the copious amounts of water I ran whenever I washed my hands. But they didn’t seem to connect the actions with anything other than me being wasteful and a problem.

Apparently the only thing my mother told my pediatrician was that I was crying a lot and tired, as I wrote about in a post about being a child with OCD and depression.

That’s behind me now. Perhaps my mother had no vocabulary to use to explain her daughter’s strange actions. Perhaps she was just afraid of what was going on with me.

Once I became an adult, I was no better an advocate for myself. And that brings me to a memory that came to me when I read the ocdtalk post.

When I was in my early twenties, in graduate school, I visited Student Health. I didn’t have health insurance, and I could be seen at Student Health with my student ID for a low fee.

If I am remembering correctly, I was there because of my ears. They seemed to get blocked with wax a lot. Or so it seemed. I wanted the doctor to check them.

It wasn’t the first time I went to the doctor for my ears. I see now that picking at my ears was a compulsion of mine. I was obsessed over the possibility of them getting blocked and muffling my hearing. So I picked at them and then had them checked at the doctor’s office to make sure they weren’t blocked. It was OCD at work.

On this particular visit, the nurse had taken me into the exam room. I don’t remember, but she probably asked me the reason for my visit and went through the usual pre-exam routine.

I don’t remember how I happened to see her walk down the hall after she left the exam room. But I remember looking down the hallway and seeing her walking with the doctor. She was pointing to her hands and talking.

I immediately grasped (perhaps incorrectly, but I don’t think so) that she was telling the doctor about my hands.

My hands.

From about three inches above my wrists to my fingertips, my hands were red. They were chapped and dry and raw looking. Here and there were little spots of dried blood.

I knew what was wrong with my hands. I washed them compulsively, soaping them up repeatedly with each hand washing, running hot water over them.

I didn’t use hand lotion because that might contaminate them, I thought.

Yes, the nurse had noticed my hands. And she had told the doctor about them.

That scared me. I didn’t want the doctor to mention my hands. I didn’t want to tell him about my hand washing.

When the doctor came in, he didn’t say anything about my hands at first. He was kind and looked in my ears.

My memories were fuzzy about this for a while. I had to go back in time in my mind and picture what happened. I remembered that he did say something about my hands. He asked me about them.

I lied to him. I told him I forgot to use lotion and the cold and windy weather wreaked havoc on them.

I missed the opportunity to tell him about the extreme anxiety that drove me to wash my hands over and over.

And what would have happened if he had asked again after hearing my lie? What if he had suspected that hands that raw looking weren’t just chapped from the cold and wind?

I’ll never know, and that’s OK. I eventually did get help.

But what concerns me is the possibility that there are others with OCD who are too afraid to talk with their doctors, but who may have signs like my red hands that the doctors don’t address. It concerns me that parents may not know what to do about their children’s symptoms. It concerns me that people may tell their doctors about their OCD symptoms, but the doctors don’t know what to do with that information.

Because of my concerns, I will continue to do as Janet advocates in her post: educate others about OCD and encourage those with OCD and their families.

Do you have OCD or think you do? Are you a family member or friend of someone with OCD? One information source is the website of the International OCD Foundation. Their Find Help page offers multiple resources.

Why do you think it’s so hard to discuss certain things with our doctors?